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Reformation Resources for Class and Study

Whether for personal study or classroom use, explore our primary texts from Luther and other reformers, a bibliography of key texts in Reformation studies, additional lecture resources, and more!

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Primary Sources

Explore the writings of key figures of the Reformation on the vital debates of their day using our Point-Counterpoint slides below! Topics include baptism, free will, indulgences, and the Eucharist.

Baptism: Luther

That the Baptism of infants is pleasing to Christ is sufficiently proved from His own work, namely, that God sanctifies many of them who have been thus baptized, and has given them the Holy Ghost; and that there are yet many even to-day in whom we perceive that they have the Holy Ghost both because of their doctrine and life; as it is also given to us by the grace of God that we can explain the Scriptures and come to the knowledge of Christ, which is impossible without the Holy Ghost. But if God did not accept the baptism of infants, He would not give the Holy Ghost nor any of His gifts to any of them; in short, during this long time unto this day no man upon earth could have been a Christian. Now, since God confirms Baptism by the gifts of His Holy Ghost as is plainly perceptible in some of the church fathers, as St. Bernard, Gerson, John Hus, and others, who were baptized in infancy, and since the holy Christian Church cannot perish until the end of the world, they must acknowledge that such infant baptism is pleasing to God. For He can never be opposed to Himself, or support falsehood and wickedness, or for its promotion impart His grace and Spirit. This is indeed the best and strongest proof for the simple-minded and unlearned. For they shall not take from us or overthrow this article: I believe a holy Christian Church, the communion of saints.

Martin Luther | The Large Catechism

Baptism: Simons

In regard to infant baptism we hold and confess, first, that it is a self-begotten rite and human righteousness; for in all the New Testament there is not a word said or commanded about baptizing infants, by Christ nor by the apostles.

Secondly, that it is a breaking and tearing to pieces of the ordinance of Christ; for he has commanded that the gospel should be preached and that those should be baptized who believe, Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15. But here they baptize without divine command, without the preaching of the word, without knowledge, faith, repentance, new life, and without all consciousness and knowledge, yet it is called by the learned a holy, glorious work and a Christian baptism and sacrament.

Thirdly, that it is a vain consolation and boasting of all the unrighteous; for, although they do not understand the word of God, do not know the truth and lead a licentious, carnal life, yet they boast themselves to be baptized Christians.

Menno Simons | A Fundamental and Clear Confession of the Poor and Distressed Christians

Baptism: Bucer

We confess and teach that holy baptism, when given and received according to the Lord's command, is in the case of adults and little children truly a baptism of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, whereby those who are baptized have all their sins washed away, are buried into the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, are incorporated into him and put him on for the death of their sins, for a new and godly life and the blessed resurrection, and through him become children and heirs of God.

Here belong the words of John the Baptist "No one can receive anything unless it is given to him from heaven" (John 3,27). Hence it does not follow that we lack the faculty or use of free will. The fact that fire warms us, comes from heaven; the fact that we seek by a natural impulse the useful and avoid the harmful, comes from heaven; the fact that after sin the will is excited to better efforts comes from heaven; the fact that we can obtain grace pleasing to God through our tears, almsgiving and prayers, comes from heaven. In the meantime our will is not inactive, even if man can reach the goal of his striving only with the final assistance of grace. But since it is a minimum which we contribute, the entire affair is attributed to God. . . . We oppose those who conclude like this: "Man is unable to accomplish anything unless God’s grace helps him. Therefore there are no good works of man." We propose the rather more acceptable conclusion: "Man is able to accomplish all things, if God's grace aids him. Therefore it is possible that all works of man be good."

Desiderius Erasmus | On the Freedom of the Will

Free Will: Luther

Here, then, is something fundamentally necessary and salu­tary for a Christian, to know that God foreknows nothing con­tingently, but that God foresees and purposes and does all things by God’s own immutable, eternal, and infallible will. Here is a thunderbolt by which free choice is completely prostrated and shattered, so that those who want free choice asserted must either deny or explain away this thunderbolt, or get rid of it by some other means. . . . It follows irrefutably that everything we do, every­thing that happens, even if it seems to us to happen mutably and contingently, happens in fact nonetheless necessarily and immutably, if you have regard to the will of God. For the will of God is effectual and cannot be hindered, since it is the power of the divine nature itself; moreover it is wise, so that it cannot be deceived. Now, if God’s will is not hindered, there is nothing to prevent the work itself from being done, in the place, time, man­ner, and measure that God both foresees and wills. . . . A man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another—God alone . . . these truths are published for the sake of the elect, that they may be humbled and brought down to nothing, and so saved.

Martin Luther | On the Bondage of the Will

Indulgences: Luther

This is what I say: No one can defend the position with any passage from Scripture that God’s righteousness desires or demands any punishment or satisfaction from sinners except for their heartfelt and true contrition or conversion alone—with the condition that from that moment on they bear the cross of Christ and practice the aforementioned works (but not as imposed by anyone). . . . I say that even if this very day the Christian church decided and decreed that indulgences took away more than the works of satisfaction did, nevertheless it would still be a thousand times better that no Christian buy or desire indul­gences but instead that they would rather do works and suf­fer punishment. For indulgences are and may continue to be nothing other than the neglect of good works and salutary suffering, which a person should rather choose than omit— even though some of the new preachers have invented two kinds of sufferings: Medicativae, Satisfactoriae, that is, some suffering is for satisfaction and some for improvement. But, praise God, we have more freedom to disdain this kind of prattle than they have freedom to dream it up. For all suffer­ing, indeed, everything God lays upon Christians is for their betterment and benefit.

Martin Luther | Sermon on Indulgences and Grace

Indulgences: Tetzel

The plenary indulgence remits the works of satisfaction to this extent: whoever is granted complete remission of pain is freed through papal power so that he is no longer obligated to do those works of satisfaction noted in article three, which had been imposed upon him for repented and confessed sins. Yet after the complete forgiveness of sins and pain, a person is no less tempted by the devil, his own flesh, and the world than he was before forgiveness. And evil habits and the possibility of falling quickly into sin again remain after forgiveness of sins and suffering. Therefore, in order to resist the devil, the flesh and the world and to subdue evil, sinful habit, inclination, and the possibility of falling quickly into sin again, a man, after complete forgiveness of sins and suffering, dare not refrain from penitential works that are salvific for him and a medicine for his spiritual weakness and also helpful toward gaining eternal life. . . . The plenary indulgence remits also the suffering that divine justice requires for sins, when they have been repented of and confessed and the penance imposed by the priest is insufficient. For the Papal Holiness follows St. Peter to the throne and papal office and also possesses, like St. Peter himself, the authority and the power to remit all sin. And it possesses this power from the words of the Lord, “All that you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven, etc.” [Matthew 16:19] Now because the pope can forgive all sins, he can also remit, through indulgence, all the suffering due sin. For all the pain that people deserve to suffer for their sin is imposed and conferred on them as just punishment, first and foremost by God, against whom all mortal sin is directed.

Johann Tetzel | Vorlegung or Rebuttal

Eucharist: Zwingli

We believe that Christ is truly present in the Lord’s Supper; yea, that there is no communion without such presence. . . . We believe that the true body of Christ is eaten in the communion, not in a gross and carnal manner, but in a sacramental and spiritual manner by the religious, believing and pious heart.

Huldrych Zwingli | Exposition of the Christian Faith to King Francis I of France (1531)

Eucharist: Bugenhagen

The remembrance here should be of the shed blood for the forgiveness of sins and not of the blood which you can remember in the body proclaiming the death of the Lord, etc. The learned papists must, after all, confess with us that the true body and the true blood of Christ are in the sacrament, but not in a natural or comprehensible manner. What do the people fantasize against the command of Christ with rational thoughts? Just do not make a remembrance here of the living body. Christ wants a remembrance here of His offered body and of His blood that was shed for our sin. This is a sacrament of faith. Reason cannot comprehend it. Therefore, only Christ’s word must be valid here so that what He says may be. We must do what He commands with the sacrament and nothing else, in spite of the devil who wants to change it. I let everything happen in this sacrament that you can remember, but only the devil wants that the word and command of Christ should be lost for the sake of human thoughts. Christians should listen to Christ.

Johannes Bugenhagen | Against the Thieves of the Cup, 1532

Eucharist: Calvin

The sum is, that the flesh and blood of Christ feed our souls just as bread and wine maintain and support our corporal life. For there would be no aptitude in the sign, did not our souls find their nourishment in Christ. This could not be, did not Christ truly form one with us, and refresh us by the eating of his flesh, and the drinking of his blood. But though it seems an incredible thing that the flesh of Christ, while at such a distance from us in respect of place, should be food to us, let us remember how far the secret virtue of the Holy Spirit surpasses all our conceptions, and how foolish it is to wish to measure its immensity by our feeble capacity. Therefore, what our mind does not comprehend, let faith conceive; viz., that the Spirit truly unites things separated by space. That sacred communion of flesh and blood by which Christ transfuses his life into us, just as if it penetrated our bones and marrow, he testifies and seals in the Supper, and that not by presenting a vain or empty sign, but by there exerting an efficacy of the Spirit by which he fulfils what he promises. And truly the thing there signified he exhibits and offers to all who sit down at that spiritual feast, although it is beneficially received by believers only who receive this great benefit with true faith and heartfelt gratitude.

Luther’s treatise On the Freedom of a Christian, despite being written early in his career, is a useful summary of his theology of justification as it relates to good works. The full text is online from Fordham University here.

Near the end of his life, in 1543, Luther wrote a lengthy screed titled, Against the Jews and Their Lies. In light of what happened to Europe’s Jews four centuries later, Luther’s recommendation to “…set fire to their synagogues…” gives a terrible but accurate picture of the Reformer’s problematic anti-Jewish sentiments. In 1994, however, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America officially repudiated Luther’s anti-Jewish writings in a formal statement apologizing to the Jewish community. More information can be found here.

Students interested in the fate of the doctrine of justification (the key sticking point theologically between the Protestant magisterial Reformers and the Roman Catholic church) might be interested in reading the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between the Roman Catholic church and the Lutheran World Federation.

A series of lectures by Dr. Joel Biermann for his Christian Doctrine course at Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis, Missouri. This course is designed to assist the student (or any Christian person) in gaining the basic understanding of Christian Doctrine in the Lutheran Tradition.

Scholarly Associations

For students considering additional academic study of the Reformation era, these professional associations can provide additional resources.

Images

This altarpiece painting in Wittenberg church by Cranach illustrates Luther preaching and illustrates how Christ is to be at the center of a sermon, wherein Christ comes to us and we are brought to Christ.

Title-page woodcut for Luther’s sermon on indulgences and grace, showing a man approaching a church building with rosary in his left hand and perhaps a slip of paper in his right.

Portraits of Luther's father Hans and mother Margaretha painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1527.

Indulgence for priests and other clergy issued at the insistence of J. Tetzel, to support the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and to repay the loan with which Albert of Brandenburg obtained the pallium.

The title page of Exsurge Domine, the papal bull excommunicating Luther, promulgated in Rome in 1520.

The single-sheet printing of the Ninety-Five Theses by Michael Lotter in Liepzig. Now in the National Library in Berlin.

Portrait of Martin Luther (1483-1546) from the German translation of The Babylonian Captivity of the Church by the artist Hans Baldung Grien (d. 1545) depicting the reformer as an Augustinian monk expounding on the Bible.

This engraving of the crucifixion is by the artist Hans Schäufelein (ca. 1480 - ca. 1539), as found in Martin Luther’s Operationes in Psalmos of 1519.

Image of infant baptism from a 1545 printing of Luther’s Small Catechism

This historiated title-page border of Luther’s Treatise on Good Works features the crest of the printer, Melchoir Lotter, the Younger, at the foot. It has been attributed to Lucas Cranach, the Elder, or to his workshop.

Luther is shown as an Augustinian monk debating the pope, a cardinal, a bishop, and another monk at the Diet of Worms in 1521.

Jacobus Latomus (c.1475-1544) was a distinguished member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Leuven and an adviser to the Inquisition.

Portrait of Duke John Frederick by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1531.

A title page of Hieronymous Emser's translation of the New Testament into German, published 1527 in Dresden, Saxony.